Check out the video below.

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Flying H Drag Strip is an amazing new facility in Odessa Missouri 30 mins outside Kansas City, and we went to check it out and see Street Car Takeover throw one heck of an event to showcase what this place is all about. Drag racing, roll racing, burnout contest, car show, they did it all. And we’re bringing you guys all the action along with a tour of the facility. Let us know what you guys think of this beautiful new track!

The post Kansas City’s BRAND NEW TRACK is Born! 1320 Video Makes Their First Visit To Flying H Drag Strip And This Place Is Awesome! appeared first on BangShift.com.

Really, the Royal Bobcat package was a set of established hot rodding tweaks. More timing, re-jetted carbs, fresh air intake, thinner head gaskets for more compression, etc. The beauty of it was that the engineering connection to Pontiac meant that the package was “factory approved” and did not mangle the warranty. It woke these things up for sure and on the streets and strip a Royal Bobcat package car could do some damage against the other muscle bound competition of the day.

We’ll let Wangers do the talking below. Fun insight into one of the neater aspects of Pontiac performance history here!

Press play below to see and hear Jim Wangers tell the Royal Bobcat story –

The post Awesome Video: The Story of The Royal Bobcat Package As Told By Jim Wangers appeared first on BangShift.com.

Dick Harrell’s screaming red Nova is seen in the video as well. Many of the dragster runs as shown in “slow motion”. We’re not sure if that  is an effective digitizing the 8mm film or what but it is really nice to watch the smoke funnel off the rear tires during their runs.

It becomes evident why people latched onto the early funny cars and every other iteration as they evolved. The dragsters do not present near the show “billboard” that the full body cars do and the show element of the A/FXers sure seems stronger as well.

Now, the last thing and the elephant in the room. Every freaking time we run photos of an event we hear people say, “There’s no one in the stands, drag racing is dying all over America. When I was a kid the track was packed every day, week, month, and year. It is a sad state of affairs. We sat and watched everything! Test and tunes had the places jammed!”

On this day Lions is a ghost town. Its the same today as it was then. Some shows are homer runs and some shows aren’t. 52 years go or 52 minutes ago, the game remains the same.

Press play below to watch this historic video from Lions Drag Strip circa 1966 –

The post Video: Awesome Action From Lions Drag Strip Back In 1966 – Wheels Up, Tire Smoking Fun appeared first on BangShift.com.

The 1980s were a seminally awesome decade for top fuel racing and the development of nitro engines. The young bucks of the 1960s had matured into the brilliant minds of the 1980s and along with their performance knowledge also came business acumen and an appreciation of professionalism in the sport. The shape of the sport had been hewn from their hard work over previous decades and it was refinement and development that spurred on the great minds. It also spurred on those that were not all that well known. Before the rule book was as thick as it is today, there were gray areas, empty holes, and “missing language” that still allowed the dreamers and unconventional thinkers to really get after it with a product based on their own theories and imagination.

Speaking to the sense of humor that Miller had, these words were painted on the cowl of his dragster, “There is no anguish known to the human race than the pain of a new idea.”

Dave Miller did not build the chassis of the car you will see him driving in this video. That fell to a man named Dennis Rollaine out of Wisconsin. In an effort to test his ideas about how a short top fuel dragster would perform, he got with Miller and the plan was set. The car debuted in 1984 and it was met by what the racing world typically meets new ideas with, skepticism and derision. Miller was not new to the game, having been around the nitro world for several years before this program started so he did not lack in driving or tuning experience. He may have lacked in funding as compared to the biggest names in the class but this was an exercise in innovation and creativity so job number one was seeing if the car would actually work.

This thing was about 8-feet shorter than the typical top fuel dragster of the day. Adding to the odd look was the forward driving position, the gap between the engine and the driver, and the small wing on the back. This would look odd as a super comp car today, let alone a top fuel dragster. There was a company called Land Shark that built short rear engine dragsters in the recent past that we immediately think about when we see this car, but we digress.

According to a cool NHRA story written by Phil Burgess that was published on the car years ago, tech inspection was a five hour affair at the first NHRA event that the car raced it. The event was the 1984 NHRA Gatornationals. They went over every inch of the car and while the history books will say that it passed inspection, we’d say that it did not fail. That’s not a knock on the car, that’s typically how this stuff works. There was nothing on the car strictly prohibited by the book, so the stamp of approval was given and Miller was quite literally off to the races.

1984 was a year of wheelies and mechanical experimentation to get the car to work properly and by the time 1985 rolled around, Miller had a program that was competitive if not world beating. Fans loved the car, loved the underdog nature of the whole package, and they really loved it when he qualified, especially at the US Nationals.

The video below was shot at Indy 1985. Miller ran 5.73 to qualify for the race and while he fails to advance there, his expression and words during the top end interview speak volumes about what an accomplishment that was.

Later in 1985, Diamond Dave Miller would lose in the semi-final round of the NHRA Fall Nationals, the best appearance the car would make in NHRA competition. Miller would run the 1986 NHRA season and then rules changes made the car illegal. He continued to run IHRA and match race circuits for years afterward.

The car managed to reach the 5.30 performance zone before the end of its career. Dennis Rollaine departed first and Diamond Dave Miller passed in 2020. The car is in the hands of a guy named Don Garlits down in Florida where it will someday be displayed in his awesome museum of drag racing.

Oh, and top fuel dragsters today have to be at least 280-inches long, per the NHRA rule book.

Watch a great video featuring Diamond Dave Miller at Indy in 1985 –

The post Remember The Awesome Shorty Top Fuel Dragster Of Diamond Dave Miller? This Video Rules appeared first on BangShift.com.

This video from the 1980s TV show, “The Exciting World of Speed and Beauty” profiles Pastorini as a player and as a racer. It’s pretty awesome and gives more insight into his approach and love for the sport than many pieces did back then. We find out that he’s been a racer since he was a kid, owned a Chevelle in college, and has always aspired to do this. There’s even a thrash section of the video where the team has to swap a dud piston in 15 minutes before running the car.

A truly cool personality profile on a truly cool racer and guy. The Quarterback Sneak in all its glory here!

Press play below to see this cool profile on Dan Pastorini, NFL QB turned Top Fuel racer –

The post Cool Video: Watch This Profile On Dan Pastorini The Star NFL Quarterback Who Went Top Fuel Racing In The 1980s appeared first on BangShift.com.

I remember going to most of these year’s ago on Drag Week and can tell you that they are some fun race tracks with cool history.

CLICK HERE IF YOU MISSED DAY PREVIOUS SICK SUMMER VIDEOS

The post Sick Summer Day 5 Video From 1320Video And Alex Taylor Racing: Destroying A Car TWICE In One Day Just To Finish, And Somehow Finishing With A Win! appeared first on BangShift.com.

(If you want to skip all this literary brilliance and just watch the show, it is down below in its entirety!)

In 1974 Evel Knievel had already been the subject of a biopic (made earlier in the 1970s and starring George Hamilton, it’s an awful movie), and was among the most famous people on planet Earth. His failure at Snake River Canyon was looming but had not happened yet when some brilliant TV executive decided that the world needed a show with Knievel as the central character who would travel from location to location making jumps and apparently fighting crime. How is this a bad concept?! You’ll see in a minute.

Because Evel Knievel was sober about 14% of the time at this period in his life and could not act to save his soul, an actor was needed to play the dashing central figure. The chosen actor was Sam Elliot. Yes, THAT Sam Elliot. It is amazing how different he looks as a kid and how different he sounds. What does Elliot think of the fact that this episode is on YouTube? You can hear him respond in the most Sam Elliot way ever by listening to THIS audio. Spoiler alert, there is an F-word used and not in the super happy excited sense.

So Elliot is playing Knievel. Two characters actors are added to fill out the traveling band of merry men. There is a mechanic (Gary Barton) and then a “manager” who is literally a fictional version of JC Agajanian the racing promoter that helped launch Knievel as a national hero. Noble Willingham was the actor made to look just like him. Willingham was even dressed in a suit and cowboy hat, the look Agajanian was most well known for. The production even went so far as to create a version of Evel’s famed custom Mack truck that he traveled with. Unlike the 80-ft long monster Knievel owned, the TV truck did not require special permitting as it met transportation laws of the time.

(That’s JC Agajanian) 

So here’s where it gets good.

This show was filmed at the 1974 AHRA Winternationals at Beeline Dragway in Arizona. The long gone Beeline was the steady home of the AHRA season opener for years and as you will see, it really packed the people in as the place is full. The fun stuff regarding the drag racing and the show is that we see some action happening on the drag strip and it isn’t scripted stuff, its just the natural action from the event as it was happening. Those racers were likely frantically searching for the air date of this show for months after, to no avail.

The crux of the episode is this jump that will be taking place directly next to the drag strip. It will be a “battle of the sexes” between Knievel and a stunt woman who is also a jumper. When we say that the ramps were right next to the strip, we mean it. Not outside a wall or a fence, RIGHT NEXT TO THE TRACK.

Naturally someone crashed into the ramp.

This photo from the Petersen Photo archive was taken by Jim McCraw 

The assembled drag racing media shooting the event had a front row seat to all this television weirdness and that means loads of images exist showing both the racing and the TV production side of things culminating in the show’s climax which is Evel making a jump while the bad guy tries to take him out.

This photo from the Petersen archive was taken by Jim McCraw

This event had to have been a massive circus. From the delays of setting up shots like the one you see above to the natural course of racing, it must have really been something. As Knievel (the real one) was actively still jumping at this point we believe he actually made the jump that is captured here. It’s also the reason that most of the fans stayed in the stands, we suspect.

In addition to the making of this pile of a show, there was trouble on the track. Pro Stock racer Irv Beringhaus was killed in his Pinto, the result of an incredibly violent high speed wreck. Jim Tice, the operator of the AHRA must have been ready to abandon ship at some point over the course of the race after all this stuff (and we’re sure more) happened.

So why did the show never air? Weirdly it got picked up and about two weeks before the series was due to being shooting executives at the network got cold feet because of the potential for kids fo start imitating jumps and hurting themselves. For Sam Elliot it’s the best thing that ever happened. A show this bad would have likely hurt his career in ways even he shudders to think about now.

So there you have it. A drag race, a bad tv show, photos from the Petersen archive, and some fun history to tie it all together. You just can make stories like this up!

Press play to see the pilot for the ’74 series that never was: Evel Knievel

The post Bleep Show: The 1974 AHRA Winternationals, A Failed TV Pilot About Evel Knievel, and Sam Elliot Swearing – VIDEO appeared first on BangShift.com.

I remember going to most of these year’s ago on Drag Week and can tell you that they are some fun race tracks with cool history.

CLICK HERE IF YOU MISSED DAY PREVIOUS SICK SUMMER VIDEOS

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The post Sick Summer Day 3 Video From 1320Video And Alex Taylor Racing: 16 Year Olds Driving 1,000 Horsepower Cars, And Alex Is Trying Not To Break More Stuff! appeared first on BangShift.com.

It is exceedingly rare to see people in their “natural” environment. This is shot kind of shotgun documentary style. It is not artistic, it is not over-produced, it is raw and real. It is also up-close and personal. No one is hamming it up for the camera, instead everyone is doing their job and taking it pretty seriously. Those people include Crimmins who seems almost grimly determined to do a good job here.

We believe this was a return to the sport for Crimmins after recovering from a crash, which if our research is correct makes the track record even MORE gutsy. Jake would suffer a fire in this car at Pomona the the year this video was made, which we think is 1976 or 1977. Lastly we like the short scene in the pits after the run were Jim is having to kind of shoo fans and gawkers away from an area so they can do their work.

What a raw, real, and awesome thing to watch!

Press play below to see some of the most awesome Jungle Jim video ever shot –

The post Jungle In The Raw: This Incredible Four Minute Clip Shows Jake Crimmins Setting A Maple Grove Track Record In Jungle Jim’s Funny Car! appeared first on BangShift.com.

In this video, Richard Liles has taken his nostalgia pro mod style car to the FuelTech USA hub dyno to run his brand new Vortech supercharged, 505ci Kauffman Racing Engines billet Pontiac as hard as it will go. Wearing a 128mm blower for the test run we see here, the fellows were also packing a 131mm blower to try later on. As you will see, this thing sounds like hell with the lid off when the hammer comes down and it is run through the gears at full boogie. It makes 2,207hp to the hubs and we’re pretty sure that was the first and likely most conservative pull.

Blowers of that size will support upwards of 3,000hp as we are seeing in the pro mod racing world and this car, with its classic Le Mans body is great. Sure the body is Pontiac in name only and the engine is certainly not some “found in a warehouse” factory piece but we love when guys stick to their guns and their favorite brand, especially Pontiacs because they’re bad ass.

Boy does this thing sound mean!

Press play below to see this 505ci Kauffman engine make 2,200hp plus!

The post Poncho Power Video: Watch This Vortech Blown 505ci Kauffman Pontiac Engine Make 2,200hp To The Tire! appeared first on BangShift.com.